Category Archives: Social media

I always wrote poetry, at least occasionally. I wrote this piece over 15 years ago. I sent it around to a few publishers on a lark (MS magazine being one of them; I don’t remember where else). Nothing happened with it whatsoever. I read it again this morning. It’s different from anything else I’ve written. Unfortunately, I think it’s as relevant today – I mean I could have written it this week. If anything, things may be worse.

To A Woman

You’re going to die you know
and it’s going to be horrible.

Did you get a pap smear?
Did you get a mammogram?
You’ll feel something cold.
It will just pinch a little.

Better get your calcium,
Don’t you want good bones?
Osteoporosis.
Weight-bearing exercise.
Get to a gym.

Eat your fiber.
Eat your broccoli.
I’ll bet you forgot your B12.

Heart disease kills most of you.
Have you exercised?
Eat fats, but not the wrong ones.
Looks like you need to brush up on nutrition.

Relax!
Don’t you know you should slow down?
Meditate, get some crystals, play music.
You’re too tense, take some herbs.

I ain’t got no Facebook friends. Yeppers, not a one, although I do have a page. I wonder occasionally if there are others like me, but there’s really no way to know. Not a way I can tell at any rate. A couple internet searches, phrased a few ways (like: How many people have no Facebook friends?) primarily turned up cases of people having no friends and wanting them. That and a Southpark episode I assure you I never saw and never will see.

You gotta understand me: this is a deliberate refusal on my part that I can see no reason to change. Lord and Mr. Zuckerberg know, Facebook would like me to. They are hell-bent that I should have me some friends. They’re not all that fussy about who either. I’m constantly shown photos of people to befriend. Facebook has gotten a bit desperate about it. I’d swear they’ve “experimented” with putting Add Friend buttons where I’ll accidentally hit them. (And I HAVE accidentally hit them, gone into a panic and quickly found the Cancel Friend Request button. Geez, close call!) Mostly, the photos are strangers with no connection to me whatsoever, but once in a rare while they’ll be people I actually know.

In case you wonder how I handle receiving requests, as opposed to extending them, I found a way to remove the “Request” button from my page. (I put Follow up because I view that differently, although there’s admittedly little to follow. Does anybody care if I “like” Dollar Tree or the “Curly Girl Handbook” or a local online yardsale group? Yeah, I think I rest my case.) I did get a surprise when I saw that someone I’d “followed” was able to throw a Friend Request my way. He was an author who was just doing it automatically; he has 3700 friends, so I don’t think he’ll lose sleep that I didn’t accept. Anyway, I was already following him!

I took my sweet time before signing up for Facebook and when I did, the primary reason was to have a page for an art hobby. To me, Facebook very much looks and feels like a college-aged guy designed it. (Friend and Unfriend? C’mon! Why not add a Cooties button??) I am still surprised so many grownups have taken to it as they have, especially in a time it feels wise not to throw a lot of personal information around, but maybe that’s just me. If I was in high school, or college now, I bet I’d be all up in it. However, I’m long past those demographics and moreover, I’m a private person – blog not withstanding – and have no desire to share the details of my life, be they petty or profound, in that setting. I’ve always found it a bit weird in real life when social worlds collide. I really don’t think I’d want people from grade school, friends, relatives, co-workers, old neighbors, and sundry others all mixed up in one stew on a public site. Yes, I know you can divvy people into subgroups, and I’ve noticed the fairly recent divisions on my home page for Acquaintances, Family, and Close Friends, but just thinking about doing all that and staying on top of it so I don’t make scrambled hash out of my life, makes me want to take a little nap.

I have no patience for a lot of what I see on Facebook. Bear in mind I don’t much enjoy a lot of small and/or surface talk. I don’t want to hear what a friend of a friend of a friend had for lunch or what someone else did on a fake farm. And at the other end of the spectrum, it feels inappropriate to hear that somebody I barely know or don’t know has cancer or has died. It’s not mine to know or react to. The trouble is that many posts are served up and responded to in much the same tone. That is, a complaint of a cold or a tumor can both get responses of, “Feel better!” It doesn’t sit right. I don’t believe in feigning or manufacturing responses to situations I shouldn’t be involved in, and certainly not through such a casual forum. It isn’t the place, not to me. Not to mention all the fighting and misunderstanding and offending. The things people write can get so ugly. There’s a lot of one-upping and trolling. And it’s not clever or insightful most of the time. These are not Shakespearean insults. I think people assume too much about others on Facebook, when in fact they’re often dealing with strangers, or acquaintances, or people they used to know and no longer do. (There may well be sound reasons you haven’t stayed in touch.) That’s a recipe for problems.

Trying to have a conversation, let alone LOTS of conversations with a group really isn’t my style, in life or in print. I’m a one-on-one sort of gal. My favorite conversations are long, meandering and at the risk of sounding pretentious, deep. I prefer one or two very close friends to scads of acquaintances, and I’ve always been wired this way. That’s not exactly what Facebook is about. I’m not saying there aren’t people having quality, meaningful interactions; just that the framework isn’t wildly geared toward them. It’s a soundbite venue. I mean even I get turned off when someone drones on & on in that tiny comment box. Facebook isn’t meant for thinking or communicating in paragraphs. Can you imagine trying to express a thought like this one, i.e., why I don’t want Facebook friends, with all its detail and nuance, there?

So why be there at all? Aside from my initial reason, the other is to be found, to have a way for people – from my past or those I know now – to contact me through private message if they want. Interestingly, few do. Not complaining, mind you! Beyond that, I like following certain people, authors for example, or joining groups of interest. The nice thing about that is if I follow or become a member and subsequently lose interest, nobody is going to be offended. A best-selling author isn’t going to even notice I’m gone. I like dabbling or reading, tossing an occasional “like”. It was fun to hop onto the official Olympics page leading up to the recent games and to get updates on the new version of Cosmos. I can check out what’s ahead on American Experience or Frontline. Get a boatload of recipes from chefs/cooks. (Geez, there’s even a page called Food Porn! Be still my palpitating heart. I can’t join it – the photos were full of sugary, creamy, rich, fattening foods and I don’t need the tease. After all, the page isn’t called Healthy Food Porn.)

When all is said and done – and I’ve been on Facebook several years – I like having the kind of balance I do. I’m not totally in the loop and I’m not totally inaccessible and out of it either. I do waste some time there, but my self-imposed limits keep me from wasting the kind of time that I’d feel uneasy about. After all, how addicted can I get? I could always change my mind and rustle up a few “friends,” but given everything I’ve seen already, I doubt I will.